Review: Beauty and Resistance

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Beauty and Resistance by Jonathan P. Walton

Beauty and Resistance

Beauty and Resistance, Jonathan P. Walton. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514012284) 2025.

Summary: A rule of life for those engaged in justice efforts in which beauty and resistance flow from a rested life.

Jonathan P. Walton is an effective ministry leader, a gifted communicator, and an advocate for justice. But a few years he was weeping in his car, stressed out and facing physical health issues. He realized he was facing burnout. His passion for God was expressed in resistance. But his heart was starved for beauty. Over a period of several years, he realized he was in need of the “scaffolding” that provided rhythms and practices to nourish his love for a God who was both beautiful and just. Like many activists, he realized that he needed to cultivate the depths of his life to sustain him in the work of resisting injustice. This book is the fruit of that process. He distills what he learned into four rhythms.

Rest: Working out of rest, not for it. He recognized that a component of his drivenness was a reaction to his family background–who he was trying not to be like. He was all about productivity but rest, date nights, and other activities of delight were missing. Walton re-framed his yearly calendar to work out of rest, with practices of beauty and delight for him and his family in every month. This also means facing dissatisfaction, despair, and desperation and bringing it to Jesus. Then he invites us into the light yoke of deliverance and discipleship.

Restore: Replenish your inner life for the work before you. Firstly, sleep was a priority. Then Walton discovered the importance of doing what he delighted in. For example, in his case this included baking and the book includes several of his recipes! It meant writing poetry he gave to his oldest daughter.

Resist: Seek individual and collective flourishing. He states that to be baptized is to be baptized into a revolution. Specifically, the good and beautiful rule of Jesus over all stands against our cultural ways of getting things done. Instead of all flourishing, for some to flourish involves the oppression of others. Walton flourishes in his efforts to resist such injustices through three prayers he prays daily. These are the Lord’s Prayer, The Prayer of Saint Francis, and the Franciscan Benediction.

Repeat: Establish rhythms to be a whole person in fruitful community. Walton uses Lewin’s force field analysis to identify the driving forces and restraining forces he needs to account for in pursuing his desired goals. Out of this, he establishes rhythms of rest, restoration, and resistance to pursue daily, weekly, quarterly, and annually. For the reader, he offers a chart of questions following this template.

Walton also adds another R that may be the first step for many and that is Recuperate. He gives the example of his own recuperation process from foot surgery. Whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, recuperation may be the starting place to take the first steps into the four rhythms.

I appreciated two things about this book. One was that Walton has “walked the talk.” He takes us through what he went through, which has a ring of authenticity. The other is the joining of beauty and resistance, of formation and justice advocacy. Walton shows how the integration of these two aspects into a rhythm of life nurtures a sustainable life. Instead of either burnout or oblivious bliss, Walton offers a model of discipleship in which beauty and resistance nourish each other.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Thriving in a Relationship When You Have a Chronic Illness

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Thriving in a Relationship When You Have Chronic Illness" by Lisa Gray, LFMT

Thriving in a Relationship When You Have a Chronic Illness

Thriving in a Relationship When You Have a Chronic Illness, Lisa Gray, LFMT. New Harbinger Publications (ISBN: 9781648486081) 2025.

Summary: Using ACT therapy, skills to keep relationships strong during chronic illness.

It is probably stating the obvious to say that chronic illness changes one’s life. But what may be less obvious is that chronic illness impacts relationships. Activities once shared in may not be possible, and with that shared dreams. Intimacy may change leading to guilt and frustration. Both the one with the illness and the well partner are affected. In other words, the dynamic of the relationship is altered.

Lisa Gray, LFMT writes this book to address the relational challenges of chronic illness. She believes partners going through chronic illness both pass through, or indeed, cycle through the classic five stages of grief. These are: shock and denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and testing and acceptance. She then uses skills drawn from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to provide tools for working through these stages:

  • Present Moment Awareness during shock and denial: staying in the moment rather than “future-tripping.”
  • Cognitive Defusion during the anger stage: Stepping aside and observing one’s emotion, helping one decide how one will respond.
  • Finding Values during bargaining: Rather than chasing “if onlys,” aligning personal and team values to pursue what’s important.
  • Self-as-Context during depression: there is a “you” that isn’t your thoughts and that you do not need to become your thoughts.
  • Committed Action and Acceptance during testing and acceptance. You experiment with actions aligning with your values in moving forward and you accept that life has changed while having found new ways to live in relationship.

The book devotes two chapters to each stage. The first explains the stage as it relates to chronic illness. Then it explores how this impacts communication and emotions, shared activity, intimacy and sex, and friends, family and gatekeeping. Finally, the first chapter introduces the ACT skill for that stage. The second chapter goes back through the relational impacts, discussing them for both well and sick partners, interspersed with exercises. Gray uses summaries of key points and reflection questions to bring home key concepts.

Throughout, the tone is non-judgmental. The writer anticipates and discusses all the feelings and thoughts people go through in chronic illness. I thought the skills and exercises very clear and practical. While the book is best worked through together, a partner can work through it alone to work on their response to chronic illness, not their partner’s.

Chronic illness changes life for partners. One of the most critical things for a relationship is constructive communication as couples go through this. While the book is not a substitute for seeing a mental health professional, it can facilitate both understanding and skills that help couples work together through this difficult time in their life together.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.

The Weekly Wrap: July 5-11

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
vintage gifts with candle and radio background
Photo by betül nur akyürek on Pexels.com

The Weekly Wrap: July 5-11

My Reading Bubble

I am becoming ever more aware that I exist within a reading bubble. I interact with a lot of readers both in person and online. And yet it turns out that only 20 percent of people in this country account for 80 percent of all book sales. And while those sales are up, as is library usage, it doesn’t appear that this is from an explosion of new readers. Rather, it might be that many of us old readers are upping our game. For retirees like me that may be literally true.

This week at The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch announced “The End of Reading Is Here” (article below). What struck me is that she was describing a sharp cultural divide between a literate and post-literate culture. Surprisingly, it is not for the absence of reading, which comes in bits and bytes constantly in our online lives. But this is very different from longform reading involving the comprehension of extended arguments or plotlines.

Consequently, we maintain different forms of discourse, from a shift from text to audio-visual and from extended discourse and discussion to competing memes and graphics. I could go in all sorts of directions with this, but I would pose the question of which corresponds more truly to life as it really is? Is it longform, or the soundbite? The fact that I keep reading gives you my answer.

Five Articles Worth Reading

We discussed how we would downsize our books by half if we had to over at my Facebook page. For some, that was to think the unthinkable. Mendel Uminer faced this challenge when his landlord said 10,000 books in a 600 square foot flat was just “Too Many Books.”

From too many books we go to the above mentioned “The End of Reading Is Here.” One of the ideas in the article is that eras of literacy are moments in history and that ours may be coming to an end. Read the article and tell me what you think.

In “Who Wants to Be a Professor?,” Mary Townsend explores the process of graduate education that inculcates a certain “persona” that is associated with the idea of a professor. Through experiences of disillusionment, she comes to this conclusion: “For let me tell you the truth, this is the only thing that is real: a lifetime of books read for pleasure, just because. It reminded of a conversation with a grad student absorbed in literary criticism, when I had the temerity to ask, When was the last time you enjoyed a book?” The look!

I’ve often maintained that the life of faith is dynamic, not static. It’s not just flipping a switch from non-belief to belief. In “Bosom Buddies” an older poet and theologian talk about how what it means to believe has changed over time as they’ve wrestled with the vicissitudes of life.

I’ve always love The Millions previews, offering thoughtful synopses of what they think are some of the more significant books of the season. Well, they have done it again in “The Millions’ Great Summer 2026 Book Preview.”

Quote of the Week

Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871. Given the environmental impact of most forms of travel, we might consider this:

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I loved working through Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael books. I’ve been reading one of her Felse Investigations. While set in modern times, I find this equally engaging. I think I’ve found a new (or not so new) series.

Maybe I’m too dogmatic, but I’ve pretty well concluded there is no place for using AI in the composition of books. Writing is hard work when done by humans but has brought us great and truly original works. Using AI to generate text just seems like cheating. And its also not always a very reliable researcher.

One would think getting to read lots of books is one of the perks of reviewing–and it is. But one of the most surprising satisfactions has been to work with authors, publicists, and readers and to engage with them as people. I think the reviewer who doesn’t like people misses out on a great deal and reviewing just becomes a grind. But that could just be me.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday, Lisa Gray, LFMT, Thriving in a Relationship When You Have Chronic Illness

Tuesday: Jonathan P. Walton, Beauty and Resistance

Wednesday: Roy McDaniel, Enacting Atonement

Thursday: Jill LePore, We The People

Friday: Ellis Peters, The Knocker on Death’s Door

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for July 5-11.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Review: The Gospel After Christendom

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "The Gospel After Christendom" edited by Collin Hansen, Skyler R. Flowers, and Ivan Mesa

The Gospel After Christendom

The Gospel After Christendom, edited by Collin Hansen, Skyler R. Fowers, and Ivan Mesa. Zondervan Reflective (ISBN: 9780310175476) 2025.

Summary: An intro to cultural apologetics, explaining how it is done and in what context, and what questions it answers.

Apologetics classically has been the effort to give a reasoned defense (“apology”) for the Christian faith. It is often associated with reasoned argument, proofs for God’s existence, evidence for the trustworthiness of the biblical accounts, of miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus. In recent years an offshoot to apologetics, cultural apologetics, has arisen out of the realization that classic apologetics is answering questions many people aren’t asking. Rather, it is an effort to understand and re-frame the cultural story in a way to which the gospel speaks compellingly as the best way to make sense of that story and one’s life. As one of the editors of this book, Collin Hansen, states:

“Cultural apologetics, then, helps non-Christians want the gospel to be true even before they fully understand this good news. We offer the beauty of the lordship of Christ as opposed to the ugliness of the lordship of the principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12)” (p. 4).

This book represents the work of scholars and practitioners associated with The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics to articulate the meaning and practice of cultural apologetics. Thus it serves as a valuable introductory text for any Christians wanting to relevantly communicate their faith. To do so, the book is broken into four parts, each of which I’ll briefly summarize.

Part 1. What is Cultural Apologetics?

Trevin Wax opens this section by showing how cultural apologetics is a useful tool in communicating the gospel in twenty-first century culture. For example, he shows how this helps us respond to cultural narratives like expressive individualism. Then he shows how curiosity is a way of caring for our neighbors and how cultural apologetics addresses the whole person. Finally, it displays the goodness and beauty of Jesus.

Then Christopher Watkin, who wrote Biblical Critical Theory, shows how cultural apologetics is as old as scripture itself. Continuing this idea Joshua D. Chatraw traces cultural apologetics through church history. He highlights Augustine and Pascal as exemplars of cultural apologetics in their day.

Part 2. How Is Cultural Apologetics Done?

Alan Noble open this section with a fine essay advocating a posture of grace rather than either accommodation or aggression. Then Daniel Strange, in a chapter on missiology, discusses how cultural narratives are idolatrous counterfeits of the gospel. In response, he advocates an approach of “subversive fulfillment.” He shows how Paul modelled this in Acts 17. First, he entered their world, noticing their gods and he explored, finding their altar to the unknown. Then he exposed how humanly created images are frauds. Finally, he evangelized, showing Christ as the “subversive fulfillment” they had sought elsewhere.

Then Gary Sutanto draws out the implications for theology of an anthropology that understands that humans know but suppress the knowledge of God with hearts that are hard and minds that are darkened. It is not that people cannot believe, but that they will not, except as God illumines their hearts as they hear the message. Ultimately, as Gavin Ortlund argues, our work is to expose unbelief as not merely untrue but unlivable. However, the gospel offers hope in place of despair.

Part 3. What Questions Does Cultural Apologetics Answer?

The three essays in this section focus on the goodness, beauty, and truth of Christianity. First, Rebecca McLaughlin makes the case for the goodness of Christianity, pointing to the goodness of Jesus, and how Christianity, as Tom Holland has argued, has powerfully contributed to human flourishing across history. At the same time, she addresses those who would call Christianity bad. Rachel Gilson then considers the beauty of Christianity, and how our sense of wonder points us to what we can ultimately find only in the beautiful God revealed in Jesus. Finally, Derek Rishmawy explores Christianity as true, the ground of reality. We believe it is true not because it works, but rather we believe it works because it is true.

Part 4. Where Does Cultural Apologetics Happen?

First of all, Bob Thune proposes that cultural apologetics originates in the church. That is, the church renewed and hospitable to outsiders is itself a cultural apologetic. However, many in our secular culture won’t initially darken the doors of the church. James Eglinton advocates for “front porches” ranging from public lectures to welcoming homes, to engage people not ready to enter “the house.” Finally, Sam Chan proposes that everyday life offers cultural texts we can deconstruct and reframe, offering the examples of weekend sports leagues, fitness trackers, many of our movies, catching planes, and doing the laundry.

Final Comments

One thing that struck me is that although this was an edited work, it read with a flow and coherence as if written by a single author. To bring such a stellar lineup together and produce such a cohesive text is a tribute to the editors. In addition, the book offers an outstanding introduction to cultural apologetics, providing definitions, baselines, and agenda. All this is done with an admirable brevity, in contrast to many apologetic tomes. In particular, the case for cultural apologetics as an aspect of Christian witness throughout history rather than a modern accommodation is valuable. Final, the book offers abundant examples of cultural apologetics that preach. Consider the example of the essays on beauty, goodness, and truth in part three. This is an outstanding introduction that will hopefully inspire many.

Review: Reading the Bible on Turtle Island

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image of "Reading the Bible on Turtle Island" by T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias

Reading the Bible on Turtle Island

Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias, foreword by Shari Russell. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514007563)2025.

Summary: A reading of scripture that takes North American indigenous culture and experience seriously.

One of the joys of studying the Bible with college students from many cultures was that others recognized things in the text that resonated with their culture but not mine. In those years, we often talked about how God had not left God’s self without a witness in any culture. God is present among all the peoples of the world. They recognize that witness when they hear or read scripture. Yet often, Christians who engaged with North American indigenous culture considered it utterly without value. While we can read any culture into the Bible, the authors of this work believe that Creator has also worked in the cultures of the indigenous people of Turtle Island (North America). When we reading the Bible, valuing our own cultural heritages, scripture often speaks meaningfully and connects with that heritage.

This book is primarily written for other indigenous, First Nations people. The authors invite readers to join into a kind of circle dance of indigenous hermeneutics. They also use the image of a medicine wheel with four quadrants: scripture, cultural traditions, creation, and our hearts and minds. This sounds quite similar to the Wesleyan quadrilateral. Then they walk us through six episodes in scripture, read in light of this hermeneutic.

They begin with both biblical and indigenous accounts of creation. What stands out is the relatedness of all things, and our relationship to the earth, its creatures, each other, and Creator whose “breath and presence” fills all things. Then they read Jesus’ proclamation of Jubilee in Luke 4 alongside the “Harmony Way.” Jesus brings shalom that fulfills the good way of relationship with all creation, with our human and more than human kin.

The vision quest, through which a person understands who one, and one’s relation to one’s ancestors, is vital to indigenous cultures. The authors observe how important vision is in scripture noting the visions of the prophets and the Apostle Paul. But most intriguing was the idea of the four visions of Jesus: in the wilderness, the Transfiguration, Gethsemane, and the cross. In particular, the 40 day wilderness experience, following the anointing of the Spirit, parallels the vision quest.

The authors emphasize that their reading is a post-colonial reading. Indigenous experience includes the “trail of broken treaties” by which peoples were displaced from their home lands. From the seizure of Naboth’s vineyard to the exile in Babylon, scripture also speaks of dispossession. At the same time, it portrays a Creator who keeps his treaties. And the Jubilee of Jesus includes the returning of lands. Then there was the terrible experience of the boarding schools that resonate with readings of the efforts to assimilate exiles like Daniel. He stands out as a model of resistance.

The authors conclude with the many ceremonies celebrated by indigenous peoples. The authors visited sweat lodges, smudgings, circle dances, and drum circles. Rather than outright rejection, the authors note how the Eucharist is an adapted celebration. This may serve as a model for relating to other cultural celebrations.

What is striking throughout is the respect for both indigenous culture and experience, including colonial traumas, and biblical narrative. But rather than a theology of grievance, the character of this work is a focus on the Creator, our community with human and more than human kin, and restoration and reconciliation.

One of the remarkable features is an addendum that is less bibliography and acknowledgements than a naming of the indigenous scholars who preceded the authors. In this, one sees exemplified the honoring of relationships, ancestors, and mentors. These even include “settlers” who have been allies.

In conclusion, this book models some of the ways indigenous peoples might read scripture while honoring their cultural heritage. But the authors also offer insights we may miss in our own readings–our relationship with the rest of creation, a richer vision of shalom and indeed a vision of visions! We often identify with Daniel. Might we view ourselves through the lens of his captors? We are incensed with the wrong done to Naboth but do we ever identify with the dispossessors? Reading scripture with the indigenous people of Turtle Island as a “settler” both enlarges and challenges my perspectives. But isn’t that what always ought happen with scripture?

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Red and the Green

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "The Red and The Green" by Iris Murdoch

The Red and the Green

The Red and the Green, Iris Murdoch. Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9781453201190) 2010, first published in 1965.

Summary: The tangled lives and loves of a Dublin Irish family at the time of the Irish Rebellion of Easter Monday 1916.

I’ve appreciated some of the philosophically-oriented writings of Iris Murdoch. So, I thought I would sample one of her novels. It may be that others she has written are better. I’ll be upfront and say I was not impressed with this one. Others have won awards, so I may not give up without trying one of these.

The seting of the novel is the lead up to the Easter Monday Irish Rebellion of 1916. Andrew Chase-White, on leave after a war injury, joins his recently widowed mother Hilda on a visit to their relations in Dublin. She’s planning to live there. While raised an English Protestant, he is connected to the web of tangled relations that make up this extended family. Andrew’s grandmother’s first husband had two children, Brian and Millie. Millie had no children while Brian married his sister-in-law, Kathleen Kinnard, having two sons, Pat and Cathal, before he died. Kathleen remarried Andrew’s uncle Barnabas Drumm, an aimless scholar who had at one time hoped to be a priest. The other Kinnard sister, Heather, had married Christopher Bellman. They had one daughter, Frances, who Andrew grew up with and is expected to marry. Christopher is also a widower. So, do you have all that straight?

So much of this novel revolves around troubled sexuality. Andrew really loves Frances but he can’t imagine having sex with her. She seems to be the only one with sense, and refuses his proposal. At one point, someone comments that Pat isn’t interested in girls. Only in the Irish Republic.

Millie craves the affection of lots of men and nearly every male in this book finds his way to her bed. Barnabas, in a loveless marriage with a wife devoted to religious causes, regularly takes comfort with her. So does Frances father, Christopher Bellman, who is willing to marry her and help her out of financial straits. She also has her flirtations with younger men, including both Andrew and Pat. Both seek her out on the same night. This results in one of the more hilarious scenes when Christopher, riding through the rain, shows up as well. At the same time, there is a quasi-incestuous character to all of this.

But remember that Irish Rebellion? Both Pat and his younger brother Cathal are Volunteers in the cause with Pat as one of the leaders. Pat even stores a cache of weapons with Millie. Murdoch captures the passion for freedom from English rule combined with the inept leadership of the Rebellion. Pat intuits the futility of their plans and tries to keep his younger brother out of the fighting.

The English-Irish tension is also evident between Andrew and Pat. Andrew has always wanted acceptance by Pat. The tension comes to the head in a surprise confrontation on the day of the Rebellion.

I felt like there was too much going on with all the tangled relationships. Barney seemed pathetic, Millie desperate, Christopher just sad and Kathleen something of a stereotype. Perhaps Murdoch’s point was what a muddled mess we make of our relations. All the glorious talk of patriotism conceals an underbelly of frustrated desire and longing. I wonder why Murdoch didn’t just focus on the tension between Andrew and Pat, who represent the Red and the Green. That’s not the novel she wrote however and this one left me wondering what it was all about.

Review: Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Make Me an Instrument of your Peace" by Mark DeYmaz

Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace, Mark DeYmaz. NavPress (ISBN: 9798898020170) 2026.

Summary: A reflection on the Prayer of St Francis and how we might be transformed into instruments of peace.

Often in our efforts to communicate the good news of Christ, we focus more on the content of the message than the character of the messenger. Both matter, but in our time of conflict and scandals even in the churches, character matters more than ever. In this book, Mark DeYmaz walks through the Prayer of St. Francis, also known as the Peace Prayer for its opening line: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” DeYmaz believes that as we pray into and live into this prayer, we may represent Jesus increasingly well in our chaotic world.

He begins by offering a bit of history of the prayer, whose true author is unknown, although it is attributed to St. Francis. It first appeared in La Clochette, a small magazine, in 1912. He offers a threefold structure for understanding the prayer:

Section 1: What. The petitioner understands that instruments of peace provide antidotes to help alleviate internal and external human conflict.

Section 2: How. The petitioner recognizes that instruments of peace surrender self-centered interests and desires to serve the greater good.

Section 3: Why. The petitioner believes that the instruments of peace find fulfillment paradoxically through selflessness and sacrifice. (p. 15)

DeYmaz then walks through the prayer section by section, phrase by phrase, exploring how Christ works transformation in and through us.

First of all, DeYmaz links the opening petition of the Peace Prayer to Isaiah 61 as echoed in Luke 4. Specifically, Jesus speaks of the anointing of the Spirit upon him to preach good news as the one who comes as a Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). As we pray this petition and identify with the Anointed One, we share in his anointing.

Then, in the second part, we surrender self-interest for transcending goods. We break cycles of hate, including conspiracies and “enemy groups,” through unconditional love. Then we recognize where we’ve been hurt and wronged and “put pardon.” Doubt and fear pervade our landscape. Hence, faith that leans in and perseveres in walking toward what God promises offers hope to others. But many lack hope and despair. Lacking the vision of a destination, people despair and become cynical. But if we “wait in hope” with and for others, we encourage them that hope in Christ is possible. As we abide in Christ, we become lights by which others see in the darkness. Lastly, when we choose joy amid sadness, we spread that joy to others.

Finally, we pray into a life that finds fulfillment through selflessness and sacrifice. Having experienced the Spirit’s consolation, we walk along others in pain, remembering our consolation. We recognize that understanding between people comes not by trying to make others understand us. Instead, it comes through genuinely listening, asking good questions and assuming the best of others. Since Christ loves us unconditionally, we extend grace and unconditional love to others. We trust that God will overmatch our own generosity. Like Pope John Paul, who forgave his assassin, we pardon as those who could not have a relationship with God without his pardon. Lastly, we pray to live into the truth that only by dying to self can we save our lives.

Each chapter concludes with a few questions for reflection. Throughout the text, DeYmaz offers illustrations of the truth in each petition. And he shows how each of the petitions are grounded in scripture. The Prayer of St. Francis is one many have committed to memory to pray daily. C.S. Lewis, in writing on prayer suggested that we see prayers like the “Our Father” as structure on which we “festoon” our prayers. Mark DeYmaz offers substance by which we might do the same with The Peace Prayer. By so doing, identified with the Prince of Peace, we engage in a practice that day by day, forms Christ’s character in us. And that is good news not only for us but for our world.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Reading Evangelicals

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Reading Evangelicals" by Daniel Silliman

Reading Evangelicals

Reading Evangelicals, Daniel Silliman. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802886477) 2025.

Summary: A study of how the Christian fiction evangelicals read in recent decades shaped the evangelical imagination.

My wife was the former librarian at our church. That is, until people stopped taking books out and used the library as a place to dispose of books they’d read. Consequently, we decided to repurpose the space and get rid of most of the books. A large portion of those books were in the Christian fiction genre. Four of the authors discussed in this book were heavily represented–Frank Peretti, Janette Oke, Beverly Lewis, and Tim LaHaye.

This was not the Christian fiction that had formed my life. For that, I had C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, Flannery O’Connor, Marilynne Robinson, Alan Paton, and Frederick Buechner to thank. I realized that I had been formed in a very different outlook (and perhaps literary aesthetic) than the vast majority of my fellow believers. While we had our love for Christ in common, our perception of the world and what was important was just different.

What I could not easily put into words, Daniel Silliman articulates in this cultural analysis of the books evangelicals were reading from the late 1980’s into the late 2000’s. The book begins and ends with the closing of evangelical Christian bookstores like Lifeway and Family Christian by 2015. During the space in which the authors considered here wrote their debut works, these stores functioned as an expression of evangelical identity. Hence, one of the interesting questions he touches on is what will happen to that identity, which he sees as increasingly fragmented.

But the heart of this book is his analysis of five pioneer Christian fiction authors (six if you include co-author Jerry Jenkins) who contributed to the boom of this genre. The authors are Janette Oke, Frank Peretti, Beverly Lewis, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, and William Paul Young. Respectively, they pioneered Christian romance, horror, Amish romance, apocalyptic, and emergent Christian fiction.

What is striking is that each wrote books Christian publishing houses weren’t publishing that someone took a chance with resulting in huge sales. Silliman sketches the background of each author, the genesis of their debut work and how it ended up being published, and the market response. Then he reviews the storyline and prevailing ideas behind each book.

Oke’s books set romance within the context of the love of God and the life of faith. Similarly, Lewis’s books focuses on the choices of individuals, in light of their Amish identity. Peretti portrayed cultural conflict as a reflection of spiritual warfare. Then, Tim LaHaye set this conflict in apocalyptic terms to compel belief against conspiratorial world powers. Finally, William Paul Young’s The Shack is an early example of a deconstructed and reconstructed faith expressed through an encounter with a very unusual Triune God.

Silliman stops short of attributing the rise of support for our current president to this literature. However, he thinks both the individualism and the culture conflict motifs of these books cultivated an imagination that resonated with some of the things he said. He writes,

“The imagination was too small, I think. Too narrow. From my perspective, American evangelicals ended up too focused on their own private domains, too fearful of strangers, too fearful of change, too invested in the arrogance of always knowing the right answer. Imagining the chaos of modern life, the confusion, the hardship, and day-to-day struggle, the best-selling fiction gave the wrong answers. But I want more and more varied imagination, not less, so I will mourn the vanishing book market anyway.” (p. 220).

But with the demise of this vanishing book market, what will capture the Christian imagination? Will it be reduced to some form of political activism? Or will there be Christian writers of the caliber of a C.S. Lewis who will capture that imagination? The hunger is there. For example, consider the phenomenal current success of Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden.

What Silliman does show is the power of good stories to shape the imagination. But the question is, who are the new storytellers and can they tell a better and deeper story?

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

The Weekly Wrap: June 28-July 4

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
vintage gifts with candle and radio background
Photo by betül nur akyürek on Pexels.com

The Weekly Wrap: June 28-July 4

America at 250

One of conversations those of my age have is comparing our celebration of America at 250 with the celebrations of the Bicentennial in 1976. For many, this doesn’t hold a candle. In 1976, we had emerged from a war. But in 2026, we are in the middle of a conflict. In 1976, we had the tall ships. This year, we have controversy about the reflecting pool. In fact, 1976 seemed a time of comparative unity, without the partisan controversies of today.

My sense is that many people don’t feel much like celebrating, except for the advances of U.S. Soccer in the World Cup and local fireworks displays. (And maybe we can add Travis’ and Taylor’s wedding!).

But there is much to love and celebrate about this country, apart from our troubled politics. Consider the varied beauty of our geography. While no government is perfect, our constitution with its balancing of powers, and its Bill of Rights stands as a singular document. We have hardly lived up to our aspiration to “liberty and justice for all.” Our commitment to the rule of law has protected us from tyranny. Moreover it has led to the eventual righting of many wrongs.

We are the inheritors of a tremendous heritage ranging from practices of governance to our history at its best and worst, and the cultural riches of American literature, art, music, and dance. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, or Georgia O’Keefe; George Gershwin, New Orleans jazz, Paul Simon, and Martha Graham and Leonard Bernstein. Wherever we turn, we stumble on a rich cultural heritage.

Cultural criticism is easy. However, culture-keeping and culture-creation, as Makoto Fujimura and Andy Crouch have discussed, begins with building on what is good and preserving and enhancing it. So, this edition of The Weekly Wrap focuses on articles that consider our national story, identity, and vision for the future. Happy Independence Day!

Five Articles Worth Reading

I have been reading Jill Lepore’s We the People on the history of our Constitution, and particular its amendments. Therefore, I was interested to come across this interview, “Jill Lepore on What to Read This Fourth of July” in which she not only offers reading suggestions share some of her own opinions about the future of the Constitution. While I don’t agree with some of what she has to say, she points up some critical challenges we face.

But what is proper patriotism, that doesn’t stray in nationalism. Martha Nusbaum, in “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” addresses this question. Her address was part of a forum that includes over twenty responses from a variety of luminaries.

Then JSTOR offers a wide array of readings in “Celebrating the Fourth of July” including several historical documents!

Mere Orthodoxy offers an “America250 Forum in two installments that includes several authors whose work I’ve reviewed. The installments are “America250 Forum, Day 1: The Idea of America” and “America250 Forum Day 2: The Weight of History.”

Finally, the first pope born in the United States offers his perspective on our 250th in “Toward a more perfect union.”

Quote of the Week

Franz Kafka, who was born on July 3, 1883, offers this wisdom. I wonder if it applies to nations as well as individuals:

“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”

Miscellaneous Musings

For a time, I lived just up the street from the gifted guitarist Phil Keaggy. When he was working on his first solo album, I remember listening to tracks from it that he had recorded on his reel-to-reel tape deck. And when “What a Day” came out, I played it over and over again. John B. Hatch has just written a book, Oh What A Day studying the artistry of that album, and offered me a copy, not knowing my own connection. What a surprise and delight for both of us!

So, I mentioned reading Jill Lepore. We the People is not for the faint of heart. It’s a 600 page history of the Constitution and its amendments. For her, the Constitution is too difficult to amend (two percent of the people can actually kill an amendment).

Lastly, I find reading the Bible with others always opens my eyes. That was especially true as I read Reading the Bible on Turtle Island. Two North American indigenous writer discuss the insights they gain from scripture read through their own cultural lenses. I’ll be reviewing it next week.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Daniel Silliman, Reading Evangelicals

Tuesday: Mark Deymaz, Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Wednesday: Iris Murdoch, The Red and The Green

Thursday: T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zecharias, Reading the Bible on Turtle Island

Friday: Collin Hansen, Skyler R. Flowers, and Ivan Mesa, editors, The Gospel After Christendom

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap  for June 28-July 4.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Review: Feasting on Hope

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Feasting on Hope" by Hannah Miller King

Feasting on Hope

Feasting on Hope, Hannah Miller King, foreword by Esau McCaulley. InterVarsity Press | Formatio (ISBN: 9781514011140) 2026.

Summary: Through her own story of loss, shows how Communion sets our grief within the larger reality of Christian hope.

I have been taking Communion all my life, since I was accepted into church membership, but usually only a few times a year because of the churches of which I was a part. Reading this book made me envious of those who celebrate the feast weekly or more often. In this book, Hannah Miller King portrays how the Table is a feast in the wilderness that often characterizes our lives.

However, this is not a book of lovely reflections on Communion. It is a book born out of King’s own story of losing her father in childhood and both the grief and the struggle that followed. She writes:

“Belonging to God’s family doesn’t replace our family of origin. It doesn’t erase traumatic memories or the ache of personal losses. But it does write them into a larger story of hope. Communion with Christ reorients us to face our various griefs from a place of safety. In him we find a home” (p. 7).

In a series of ten reflections, she re-traces her own healing process and its relationship to different facets of the multi-faceted wonder of the Table. For her, this was a journey that eventually led her into the Anglican priesthood, from only partaking to inviting others to partake. Beginning with hope, she explores how those living in the shadow of loss and the face of death find life in offering ourselves thankfully to the one who gave his body for us. Not only that, we are born longing to be seen. At the table, God reminds us that he sees us in Christ and embraces us. In all our bodily brokenness, we are met in the one whose body was broken, who is in solidarity with us.

But communion not only entails serious truths. It also is a gift of joy to celebrate. When we want to draw back, in George Herbert’s words, “Love bids me welcome.” However communion isn’t just me and Jesus. We celebrate communion in community. We both discover in it that we are part of a larger family, but also a family that sometimes pains us. Then we eat in the anticipation of the day that Jesus will heal all our wounds and fractures.

King experienced scarcity following her father’s death. But communion challenges our scarcity mindset as the place where one died to multiply his life in many. The Table is a place of hospitality in which Christ welcomes us by becoming the meal. Then the meal invites us to believe that in giving, Christ will nourish us. But giving also calls us into courageous belief. If I give, will I lose out?

Finally, communion speaks to our longing for our unseen home, even as King had longed for the home she lost. These words were themselves a glimpse of that longed-for home:

“In Celtic spirituality, there’s an ancient recognition of ‘thin places,’ where the veil between heaven and earth is especially translucent. Thin places are believed to create a particularly hospitable environment for sensing God’s presence. The Lord’s Table is such a place. We find it in grand sanctuaries with stained glass windows and in borrowed school cafeterias where new congregations gather. We find it in beautiful mountain towns and in war-torn countries; in national cathedrals and in illegal underground churches. In every place that God’s people gather to commune with him, heaven touches earth and we experience, in part, the fellowship that characterizes our forever home” (p. 137).

There are none of the theological debates that characterize so many books on communion. Instead, King ushers us into the wonder of our blessed hope, as Christ welcomes us to feast on him. And through weaving in her own journey through grief and loss, she helps us see how the table may nurture hope in us. All this helps me understand why so many who partake weekly or even more often are never ho-hum about coming to the table. And reading this piqued my own hunger and thirst.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.